I had the pleasure of serving as Principal for a Day at Arizona School for the Arts (ASA) on October 27 via a program put on by HandsOn Greater Phoenix. The newly revived/revamped program this year paired about 25 business leaders and principals, and is designed to foster more meaningful, longer-term relationships between the participants

I became aware of this opportunity through my participation in Valley Leadership and was delighted to be selected and paired with Leah Fregulia Roberts, head of school/CEO of ASA. This pairing speaks directly to my passion for the arts – my day job is as manager for individual giving at the Musical Instrument Museum, and I serve on several music-related boards, as well as perform as a flutist and singer. My Principal for a Day experience began with a great training session led by HandsOn Greater Phoenix president & CEO Rhonda Oliver and youth program manager Sharifa Rowe which covered everything from the similarities and differences within the operating frameworks of schools and businesses to education in Arizona today to the building blocks of an effective partnership.

During my day at ASA, I had the pleasure of meeting not only with Leah but also with arts director…

Welcome to Research Friday! As part of a continuing weekly series, each Friday we invite a nonprofit expert to highlight a research report or study and discuss how it can inform and improve day-to-day nonprofit practice.

When he visited America in 1831, French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville was impressed with the way Americans from all walks of life gathered together in associations. Tocqueville declared in Democracy in America that these associations were indispensable to a functional democracy and that the knowledge of how to work together was the “mother of all forms of knowledge” in a democratic country.

We have long known that civic engagement strengthens democratic systems. The question this blog post addresses is: does civic engagement strengthen the economy? A recent report authored by several partner organizations, including the National Conference on Citizenship, CIRCLE, Civic Enterprises, the Saguaro Seminar, and the National Constitution Center suggests that there may be a correlation between civic engagement and the unemployment rate.

Welcome to Research Friday! As part of a continuing weekly series, each Friday we invite a nonprofit expert to highlight a research report or study and discuss how it can inform and improve day-to-day nonprofit practice.

At Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF), we use financial data every day in our work with nonprofits and their funders. One source of data informing this work is our annual State of the Sector Survey. Throughout the year, I’ve been blogging about key trends from our 2011 survey, which was completed by nearly 2,000 nonprofit leaders nationwide. They told us about their organizations’ financial outcomes from 2010 and speculated on what 2011 would bring. As we look back on what was certainly a challenging year, I thought it would be interesting to revisit some of their expectations.

Nonprofit leaders told us about planned changes to their service offerings in 2011:

Although contributed revenue was generally down from public and private sources alike, a majority of nonprofits indicated that they actually planned to add or expand their offerings in 2011. Many anticipated expanding the geography they serve or partnering with another organization in order to meet the…

In the business world, mergers and acquisitions are fairly commonplace. Those that are successful tend to benefit all involved, but the process is usually long and most will face problems and resistance along the way. The same is true for nonprofits.

The following is a combination of results from analysis I conducted last year on the 50 Collaboration Prize submissions that related to mergers, as well as two case studies from recent church mergers in the metro Phoenix area.

Redemption Merger: Similar Vision, Differing Models & Audiences

East Valley Bible (EVB) was a large, well-established 20-year-old church located in the East Valley which comprised a single campus with multiple services. EVB had well-established programs for children, families, and older adults.

Praxis was a rapidly growing church with campuses in Tempe and a brand new one in Arcadia. Praxis was not only a young organization (5-years-old at time of merger), but it also had congregations primarily made up of people in their 20s and 30s. Initially, Praxis had been moving the Sunday speaker back and forth between both its locations every Sunday. Due to the logistical challenge, they were exploring a video campus model. They ended up going with a model which used separate live speakers at each of their two campuses but which had a single support and administration team.

Jake Johnson, Praxis' Executive Pastor,…

Paula couldn’t figure out why things had stopped running smoothly. As the CEO of medium-sized business, she was admired for her decision-making ability, moral conscience, and close coordination of staff activities (“Paula Front-and-Center,” they called her). But recently she was overhearing aggravated remarks from staff: she wasn’t paying attention to them, she was missing appointments, and forgetting to discuss important points at meetings.

Conscientious Paula was shocked to uncover these frustrations, and only stumbled on the solution by accident. Paula’s secretary Amy directed all of the traffic in and out of Paula’s office, but Amy had recently gotten so burned out from work that she couldn’t handle the traffic anymore. She failed to pass along calls, snapped at visitors, and passed along incomplete messages that made it look like Paula was being sloppy. Paula knew that helping Amy de-stress was step one of getting things back on track.

Let’s pull back the curtain.

The story above is about how your brain works. Your brain has a part called the Prefrontal Cortex, or “PFC” (remember “Paula Front-and-Center”?). The PFC is basically what makes you act like a human and not a salamander. It directs our attention, is responsible for moral decision-making, allows us to empathize with others, and helps coordinate the thousands of signals rushing around your brain. If your PFC stops functioning, you’re in trouble. There are two ways this…